This invention relates to a tone effect imparting device used for imparting musical tone effects to tone signals in an electronic musical instrument or other tone generation or reproducing devices.
According to the prior art different effects are imparted to tone signals by providing exclusive effect imparting circuits separately for respective tone effects. This provision of separate exclusive circuits however is disadvantageous both in the size and cost of manufacture of the device. For eliminating the disadvantage, Japanese Preliminary Patent Publication No. 14894/1982 discloses a single effect imparting circuit (a modulation circuit) shared commonly for various effects. The effect imparting circuit can impart only one effect at a time and an effect selection switching circuit is constructed in such a manner that it selects only one effect preferentially when plural effects have been selected simultaneously. An improved type of effect imparting device is disclosed in Japanese Preliminary Patent Publication No. 50595/1983. According to this device, the effect imparting function of a single effect imparting circuit is programmable and plural effects can be simultaneously imparted on a time shared basis. In this device, however, the manner of utilizing the effect imparting circuit on a time shared basis is limited to several modes only and the device cannot be freely utilized on a time shared basis for providing any desired combination of effects. There still remains a problem in this prior art as to whether a simple construction can be provided if there is a large number of selectable effects and if there are plural systems of tone signals to which these effects are to be imparted independently from one another.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a tone effect imparting device of as simplified a construction as possible which is capable of selectively imparting plural effects simultaneously from among many types of musical tone effects and also capable of effecting a tone effect imparting control independently for each of the tone signals from plural systems.